Education

States React To School Closures


New Choice Programs Are Harbingers Of Things To Come

Home to some of the most fabled traditions in the Nation, Kentucky is not typically known for challenging convention. But earlier this month, sparks flew when the state legislature challenged the Governor over an important education measure. Putting southern hospitality and the avoidance of conflict aside, the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto of a measure that provides families with publicly-supported options to choose the school that their child will attend. The bill HB 563, sponsored by House Majority Whip Chad McCoy, created a tax credit for Kentuckians who donate to specified non-profits. The groups then distribute the funds, called Education Opportunity Accounts, to eligible families to use on education expenses and, in Kentucky’s largest counties, private school tuition. Up to $25 million has been allocated, to start. 

“‘If scholarships were available for families like mine, we would have a chance to better raise our kids in a safe environment,’ Cassandra Behanan, a Black mother of five,” told the Courier-Journal when the proposal was first introduced. 

In a day and age where attending your local public school is not only not a fait accompli, but is less and less desirable every month, the bold move caught many defenders of traditional public education and teachers associations off guard.  And yet, it garnered very little media attention outside the state.

Neighboring West Virginia similarly overcame establishment opposition to enact one of the most expansive education reform laws since Florida adopted its comprehensive A+ Plan for Education, in 1999. For years, Mountain State lawmakers avoided causing the controversy that would come with enacting such policies, knowing it would result in challenging their political tenure. But this year was different. First, they were compelled by the fact that the West Virginia schools have been largely closed to in-person learning for the year, even when private schools were safely opened. The State Board had to order systems to open in February. That decision was challenged by the union which has remained opposed to full-time, in-person learning, even after the Governor made vaccinations accessible to all and federal funds were dispensed to ensure safety. It was just the impetus lawmakers needed to enact fundamental changes to where and how students are educated. 

The new Hope Scholarship Law gives families up to $4,600 to spend on private, homeschooling or microschool costs and made modest improvements to its charter school law, allowing up to 10 new schools and establishing a new board that can more fairly judge charter applications than school boards which typically oppose the innovative schools.

Both states had seen fierce, union-organized teacher protests during 2019, that were largely driven in red states where unions were looking to secure increased funding and stronger protections against teacher dismissals. Their mobilization effects were short lived.

Such was the case in South Dakota as well, which also just this March enacted an expansion of its state tax credit program that fuels private scholarships.  Similar bills to create or expand educational options are pending in at least a dozen states.

And yet, such developments which are directly tied to the deficient response by school systems post-Covid and demonstrate a weak link in the teacher’s union armour are largely ignored, written off to these being blue or non-union states, or seemingly not considered important.

I can only imagine the national coverage if a Governor had rejected a major pro- education system funding bill that was supported by teacher’s unions. When then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker proposed a budget that cut teacher tenure and increased education choice for low-income parents, it was widely – and negatively – covered nationally. But yet when Kentucky’s Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, vetoed the education choice bill saying it would divert money from public schools (which have been closed) and predicted it would be challenged in court, and then was overridden by his own legislation, not one non-education national media outlet covered the issue or challenged his presumption of the program being unlawful. That’s even more curious given that the U.S. Supreme Court just last year ruled a similar program in Montana constitutional and all but dismissed the clauses in 36 other constitutions – Blaine Amendments – that have been historically cited as barriers to choice. 

These states may not be as attractive to folks who prefer reading or writing about education and politics in New York or Florida, or perhaps they are written off as just small time stuff, but they are harbingers of things to come.



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